On Microsoft Xbox Cloud Gaming Service (xCloud), you’ll find games from big publishers like EA, Take-Two, and Ubisoft, but you won’t see anything from Epic Games. And we know why: the studio sees xCloud as a competitor.
This is the last information to come out of Epic’s ongoing legal battle with Apple. In one deposition spotted by The edge, Joe Kreiner, vice president of business development at Epic, answered questions about xCloud during the trial. He noted the decision to keep Fortnite out of service was a deliberate choice on the part of the company. “We found Microsoft’s efforts with xCloud to be competitive with our PC offerings,” he said. Unfortunately, while it looks like Kreiner may have gone on to explain Epic’s thought process on the subject further, the section that follows is redacted from the document.
But as The edge points out, Fortnite is available via NVIDIA GeForce Now Service. It is also possible to play Epic Games Store exclusives like Deadly shell across the platform. Of course, the key difference between the two is that with NVIDIA’s offering, you are playing games that you have purchased directly from Steam, the Epic Games Store, and other online stores. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, on the other hand, all transactions go through Microsoft and the company doesn’t allow competing storefronts. Ultimately, it’s these two issues that are at the heart of Epic’s lawsuit against Apple. The studio believes that Apple should allow companies to operate competing storefronts on iOS, where they are also free to use their own payment systems.
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